Colombo Sri Lanka (Commonwealth Union)_Taliya Ariana Peiris becomes the first Sri Lankan-American to be crowned Miss Teen California. The seventeen-year-old hailing from the Bay Area has just completed high school and will be joining Santa Clara University in the fall of 2023 to major in Management Information Systems. With an entrepreneurial streak already inherent and arming herself with a passion for business and pop culture which she hopes take her into the realms of becoming a business analyst, Peiris is the founder of TAP Media, her own social media marketing company.
At a gala ceremony held at the Hyatt Regency Orange County, Peiris won the crown after multiple rounds in the competition, competing with forty teenagers from across the state of California and will be representing the state in the upcoming Miss Teen USA pageant. In a hard-fought win in which fifteen semi-finalists were selected when the top five finalists were announced, Peiris says she still couldn’t imagine winning the crown.
Peiris was born to Sri Lankan parents who migrated to the USA when she was five. She has lived in San Ramon since then and is an avid pianist, dancer, and a girl scout, all advantageous traits when growing up to be a citizen of the world. She is an avid collector of vinyl, a concert enthusiast, roots for her favorite Bay Area sports teams accompanied by her dad, is quite a foodie trying out restaurants and cuisine, and gives an injection to her wanderlust nature by traveling the world. Her current count is 16 US states and eleven countries.
Currently learning the art of DJing, Peiris’ love for the performing arts pushed her to launch III Creatives (Inspiring Imagination and Inclusivity), a social media movement aimed at creating spaces for better representation and accessibility in the entertainment industry for visual and performing arts resources for all. Her Instagram series, ‘Creative Convos with Taliya Peiris’ interviewing emerging artists and creating scholarships for deserving students who are studying the arts and the opportunity to pursue higher education, is a valuable addition to her goals.
US Ambassador in Sri Lanka Julie Chung met Peiris when she visited the American Center and expressed admiration for her commitment to utilizing her influential platforms to promote cultural exchange and foster connections between the US and Sri Lanka.
Miss Teen USA comes under the franchise of the Miss Universe Organisation and is a competition for girls between the ages of 14 and 19. The contest was first held in 1959 as a mail-in photo contest by Teen magazine and only became a stage event in the 1960s. It was in 1983 that the pageant became a part of the Miss Universe family of pageants and Peiris, who is the 41st Miss Teen USA contestant, will be participating in the contest this fall to be held at the Grand Sierra Resort & Casino, Nevada.
